Lux insists, though, that he didn’t have radio or club play in mind when he made the album. “I mean, I like all the tracks, and I guess when I was making them, I wasn’t thinking about them being singles so much as I was trying to make sure they all sounded unique and distinct from one another,” he says. “I wanted them all to stand out. And since I’ve been spending so much time on the road, I’ve been seeing the different way that people react to all of them. Seeing those reactions has been the most fun. My favourite track from the album is the one called Wild Heart, but every time someone comes up to me, they say that they like something different. That’s what I was hoping for, and that makes me really happy.”
Around these parts, Teenage Crime may be Lux’s signature track. The song combines a shimmering synth hook with lyrics about youthful abandon, and I ask Lux if it draws in any way on his own experiences as a youngster. “Yeah, it’s definitely based on things that happened to me,” he says. “I wanted to write something that kind of summed up a lot of my young years, how my friends and I would go out and feel like we were invincible, like we owned the night and we never wanted it to end. I wanted to make something that captured that feeling, but also, I didn’t want to make it too specific, because I wanted everyone to have their own interpretation. The song says something about my life, but someone else can come to it and hear some element of their own teenage years in it.”
This has been a very big year for Adrian Lux, with the bulk of his time spent on the road, but the constant touring hasn’t necessarily slowed his musical output. “I’ve been working on a lot of new stuff recently,” he explains. “I have a lot of down time in hotel rooms and airports and places like that, so I try to make the most of it by recording and producing new stuff whenever I can.” He’s able to get by with very little gear – a laptop loaded up with Logic and a small set of speakers I all it takes, and then he’s good to go anywhere in the world. “Sometimes I get more inspired being on the road,” he continues. “I mean, some of my best ideas have come to me while I’m touring. I mean, it’s not always ideal. It’s good to be home, as well. Right now I’m looking forward to spending time in the studio before I go away on tour again.”
Though he may be in demand, Lux is hardly what you’d call aloof – he is constantly on Twitter and Tumblr, rattling off stories about shows, posting snippets of new material and interacting with fans. “It’s fun to connect with the world,” he says, when I ask about his social networking habit. “I like to make my sets as personal as possible, and I guess I like the idea of having a lot of personal interactions with fans, too. I’m on there all the time, I get on Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr pretty much every day, posting new stuff that I’m working on, new remixes and getting people to go to the shows. If someone posts something about how they liked a show, it’s cool to be able to give them a shout-out and say thank you – I mean, why wouldn’t you?”
Adrian Lux has visited Australia several times over the last year or so, and has always played to rapt crowds. “The club and festival shows I played were all massive, and the crowds were getting into it,” he says. “I loved it. I think it’s a really cool country, and I feel really lucky to be able to go on tour to places like that.” He’s soon to return for next year’s Summadayze, and I ask what exactly we can expect. “I’m hoping to premiere some new songs and new material,” he says, “to try out some of the new stuff I’ve written. I want to make it a really personal experience for everyone. I don’t know what else to say about my set. I like to play a lot of my own stuff, so you’ll be hearing some exclusives and material you’ve never heard before, and I also like to play a lot of stuff by my friends. We’ll see – you have to come to the show to experience it for yourself!”
